Dreaming of the Lush Fruits of Summer

I know - there are no seeds here.  But this lush lithograph made my nose twitch in anticipation of the smell of crushed raspberries.  

And red currants!  The way the sun shines through them and they light up!!  My grandmother grew red currants along the bank next to the road. She made jelly every year.  It was so clear and brilliant red, sweet and tangy.  I'm thinking of planting some this year.  They can do fine without full sun so I might be making jelly in a year or two myself!

I live in Connecticut which has no regulations about growing currants.  Most New England states do have regulations as the currant is a host for a fungus that attacks white pines.  A very thorough UMass info sheet gives the low down on growing currants.  Excerpt below...

Ribes are a very diverse genus with hundreds of different varieties that differ in plant size and form, and fruit flavor, shape, texture, color and hairiness. While most are hardy to Zone 3 or Zone 4, a few are hardy to Zone 2. 

• Red currants : Fruits range in color from dark red to pink, yellow, white and beige, and they continue to sweeten on the bush even after they appear to be in full color. Popular cultivars include 'Cascade', 'Detvan', 'Jonkeer van Tets', 'Red Lake', 'Rovada', 'Tatran', and 'Wilder'. Many people consider ‘Rovada’ to be the best red currant cultivar. Plants are dependable, vigorous, late ripening, and very productive, bearing long-stemmed clusters of large red berries that are easy to pick.
• Unlike most other fruit crops, currants and gooseberries tolerate partial shade and prefer a cool, moist growing area. Northern slopes with protection from direct sun are ideal. Planting along the side of a building or shady arbor is suitable as well.      Avoid sites with poor air circulation, which increases the incidence of powdery mildew. Sloping ground alleviates this condition. Also avoid light-textured, sandy soils. Rich, well drained soils that have a high moisture holding capacity are best. Incorporate organic matter (compost, peat, or manure) to improve the soil, particularly if it is somewhat sandy. The ideal soil pH is about 6.5.

1898 Agricultural College Seed Set

The Agricultural Colleges benefited from these seed collections proposed in 1894 and created in 1898.   This showed up on Ebay the other week.  I enjoyed looking at the common names of the weeds!  "Nimble Will" makes you think.  I live near UCONN, an original land-grant university.
(They have the best ice cream, a product of their cows and the ice cream making program.)


From Wikipedia: A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.

The Morrill Acts funded educational institutions by granting federally controlled land to the states for them to sell to raise funds to establish and endow "land-grant" colleges. The mission of these institutions as set forth in the 1862 Act is to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science, military science and engineering (though "without excluding ... classical studies"), as a response to the industrial revolution and changing social class. This mission was in contrast to the historic practice of higher education to focus on an abstract liberal arts curriculum.

Ultimately, most land-grant colleges became large public universities that today offer a full spectrum of educational opportunities. However, some land-grant colleges are private schools, including Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Botanical Gazette, 1894

 

A Riff on Seed Packets - Silly... and Repulsive

I don't like this New Yorker cover.   In fact, I find it repulsive.  Who would think a seed packet riff could seem yucky?   Maybe it's the meat?  

I expect most people find it fun, since the publisher would not use it if all the editors stuck out their tongues at it. 

What can I say?  YUCK!!

Connections: The Transatlantic Cable and Golden Ladies

I am having fun continuing my search for interesting bindings in general and ones with gilt motifs in particular.  I just found this excellent page written by Steven Baird for www.common-place.org, where he documents the life and the business of a bookbinders tools and die maker, Samuel Dodd,  in New Jersey in the 1800s.   

The connection to my blog post that featured the gold stamped binding on Robert Buist's book is the publisher J. C. Riker.  When I followed Riker I found Dodd who supplied Riker's firm with the stamps.

Here is another of Riker's publications.  I do not know if this is a Dodd design.

Would you believe this image is from the webpage History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network: 19th Century Albums by John C. Riker and Other Makers?

Funny world, isn't it?:-)  To see the connection, which is very cool, visit them.  There is no link on the above page to the parent page, so here it is.

So where are the seeds, you ask?  No clue, I answer! I suppose it is part of the magic of seeds that gets us to read a bit more about the technological magic the transatlantic cable represented in 1858!  

A Charming Gardening Binding and the Half Ton of Iron That Made It Possible

I wish I could have a larger photo of this binding Robert Buist's The Family Kitchen Gardener! The large gold stamping on the cloth binding is champ. I wonder how many tools are there that I can't see.

The Family Kitchen Gardener : containing Plain and Accurate Descriptions of all the different species and varieties of Culinary Vegetables; with their Botanical, English, French and German names, AlphabeticallyArranged, and the best Mode of Cultivating them, in the Garden or under Glass; with a description of Implements and Medicinal herbs in General Use. Also, Descriptions and Characters of the Most Select Fruits, Their Management, Propagation and Culture. Illustrated with twenty-five Engravings. New York : J. C. Riker, 1848. First Edition.

Below is the new 1832 technology that made this impressively large area of gold die stamping possible.  
The larger the area of a stamp, the greater by far is the needed force to stamp gold. The Imperial Arming Press ushered in a wonderful period of stamped bindings.  Because of its power, even the less tractable materials such as cloth could be firmly and flatly squished allowing gold to clearly show the details of a complex design. 

Look at this thing and note the classical details in the cast iron!!

Lion paw feet, acanthus leaf leg decoration...

...be still my heart.

Here is another binding from the same period.  Note the blind (ungilt) stamping around the central motif.

LINKS:

•  Judging a Book by Its Cover: Gold-Stamped Publishers' Bindings of the 19th Century

Late Winter Dreams

I can just feel it...

makes me relax just pretending.

Robert Buist's Gardening Book Has the Longest Title I Have Ever Seen

Go to the bottom of the page for a very large image of Buist's nursery in 1840 and enjoy touring it!  I like the system for controlling the heat in the cold frames.

Advertisement depicting a bird's eye view looking northwest at Robert Buist's enclosed nursery and greenhouses on Twelfth Street, south of Lombard Street. Two long rows of hotbed frames extend west from Twelfth Street and run the length of Rodman Street behind a three-story building marked "140" (a preconsolidation address). Men and women stroll along the central walk that separates the two rows of hotbed frames inside the grounds, accessed from Twelfth Street by the entrance gate adorned with the proprietor's name "R. Buist". Outside of the nursery, several men and women converse on the sidewalk. One of the men holds a driving whip, and is presumably the driver of the stalled horse-drawn carriage in front of the entrance. Another driver stands in front of a team of horses pulling a covered cart, grasps the reins, and leads them along Rodman Street toward a man attempting to rein in a rearing horse. Also shows men, women, children, and dogs on the sidewalk. A few trees dot the empty landscape behind the nursery. Buist established his business in 1828, which was known as Robert Buist Company well into the Twentieth century.

ABOVE: philadelphiabuildingsproject.org

The 1839 book, by the respected Philadelphia nursery 

and seedsman Robert Buist, has the longest title I have seen!

 The American Flower Garden Directory: Containing Practical Directions for the Culture of Plants in the Flower Garden, Hot-house, Green-house, Rooms, Or Parlour Windows, for Every Month in the Year. With a Description of the Plants Most Desirable in Each, the Nature of the Soil, and Situation Best Adapted to Their Growth, the Proper Season for Transplanting, &c. Instructions for Erecting a Hot-house, Green-house, and Laying Out a Flower Garden. Also, Table of Soils Most Congenial to the Plants Contained in the Work. The Whole Adapted to Either Large Or Small Gardens, with Instructions for Preparing the Soil, Propagating, Planting, Pruning, Training, and Fruiting the Grape Vine. With Descriptions of the Best Sorts for Cultivating in the Open Air          Link

Not much to look at now with its faded embossed cloth binding which
may have been green originally.  Green is an extremely fugitive color .

In 1840, Loudon wrote in his London periodical, 

The Gardener's Magazine and Register of Rural and Domestic Improvement, the following review. 

This differs from most of the American works on gardening, in being an original composition from beginning to end. It is most judiciously adapted to the country in which it is published ; and the author is one of the best cultivators in the United States. There is no American work that we know of at all to be compared with it in point of usefulness. We owe the author an apology for not having sooner acknowledged the receipt of the copy he kindly sent us above a year ago.

I am beginning to wonder at the number of horticulturists that came from Scotland!!  Robert Buist was one of them arriving here in the United States in 1828 after having served his apprenticeship in Scotland.  Once here he first worked for David Landreth who was one of the earliest nurserymen in our history. 

This is Buist. from Gardener's Monthly and Horticulturist, vol.XXII, 1880

 In only two years, he went into business with a Mr. Hibbert as a florist in Philadelphia.  They were very successful.  One of their famous plant introductions was the poinsettia obtained through the Minister to Mexico,  Mr. Poinsett.  When Mr Hibbert died, Buist continued on his own, and was succeeded after his death in 1880 at age 75 by his son  of the same name.  His obituary, in 

Gardener's Monthly and Horticulturist,  goes into great and affectionate details of his life.  It is a good read! 

1851 Buist building in Philadelphia.

Buist made trips to Europe for new varieties of plants and seed which he brought back and raised in his nursery.  It was noted he was going in an issue of the  Philadelphia Florist and Horticultural Journal of early 1852, saying - We shall look anxiously for the return of Mr. Buist, with the plant novelties of Paris and London, he set out on his important journey on last Saturday, in the "Arctic" in good spirits—we hope we will be borne out in our statements, that Philadelphia is not behind the time in Horticulture...

 An entry later in the year in the same Journal asked, while Buist's trip was of interest to be sure, why was it important enough to be mentioned in the minutes of the society?    (A wee bit of rivalry perhaps?)

This title page is too cool to leave unshared :-)

The Gardener's Monthly in 1870, in a piece about bedding plants and how they were being improved, contained this...

These colorful catalog covers are the son's.  And I think this above building is his period as well.

Ad

More books by the first Robert Buist:

• The Family Kitchen Gardener: Containing Plain and Accurate Descriptions of All the Different Species and Varieties of Culinary Vegetables ... Also, Descriptions and Characters of the Most Select Fruits, Their Management, Propagation, Etc. Illustrated with Twenty-five Engravings 
• The Rose Manual: Containing Accurate Descriptions of All the Finest Varieties of Roses, Properly Classed in Their Respective Families, Their Character and Mode of Culture, with Directions for Their Propagation, and the Destruction of Insects